Being walked and downgraded, what to expect?
 

On arrival of a 2 night stay, I got told there were no rooms available, and I was sent to a really old and dirty place for the night. The second night, the hotel had a room available, but only a standard room whereas I had booked a superior room.

The hotel refused any direct compensation, offered me a voucher for a future stay instead. I had to reject since I would not travel there in the future so this voucher would have been useless to me.

I do not have too much experience with Best Western, but from other hotel chains I am regularly staying at, I would expect AT LEAST
- the first night to be reimbursed
- for the second night, the difference between a superior room and a standard room to be reimbursed

Is this reasonable? The hotel does not want to cooperate, is it worth complaining to customer service of BW? Does BW has a walking policy?

Did you ask the manager for those two things. Marriott typically offer something similar if asked.

Yes I did. He refused and offered a 2 night stay in his hotel instead. Stated explicitly he would not reimburse anything.

Now the problem was that

a) it was a high season weekend with high prices, and the voucher was only for a low season stay

b) it was a holiday/weekend destination and we live 1000 km away and would not go back to that area any more. When I told him that we work a lot and can not just take holidays when we want, he made fun of us.

c) I would not even think of going back to his hotel as he clearly lacks respect for his customers.

To me it sounds logical that you reimburse the room price difference if someone books an executive room and gets a standard room. You can make an offer for a free future stay, but if this offer is refused, you should just reimburse in cash. But this is just my opinion.

As for overbooking situations, I do not know the legal situation. I have always thought the hotel should offer an alternative hotel of at least the same, or higher, quality. Which was clearly not the case here. Many hotel chains indeed fully reimburse the night on top of that. Had several cases with IHG and this has always been solved professionally and without any discussion.

That's why I wanted to get the experience of other BW travellers.

"Every Best Western hotel is independently owned and independently operated."

So I'm not sure how experience of other BW travelers at other hotels is going to help.

And how can other traveler's experience at this same hotel help you if you haven't told other travelers which exact hotel this was? :confused:

If you reserved ahead of time and the hotel overbooked, it is definitely there fault. Why doesn't the owner understand this? Was there a reason they gave your room away? or Did they just overbook out of sloppy management?

Even if the hotels are independently owned and managed, there could have been a set of rules imposed by BW, in order to maintain at least a minimum level of consistency.

Therefore I am asking other travellers, if they have had similar experiences at BW hotels, and if I can expect something from BW.

They overbooked indeed. There was an event in the area, many of the hotels were fully booked. Sloppy management, yes sure, there were other customers in the same case that day.

Why the owner did not understand it, no idea. When we complained to him about the room downgrade for the second night, his answer was literally "would you have preferred to stay in the old dirty place one more night?" :eek: